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“When you think of cross-training, Pilates may not be the first thing that comes to mind. Often put in the same category as barre workouts, most don’t think of Pilates as a way to build power and strength, as much as lengthen and tone. It turns out, however, that is a huge misconception.”

When you think of cross-training, Pilates may not be the first thing that comes to mind. Often put in the same category as barre workouts, most don’t think of Pilates as a way to build power and strength, as much as lengthen and tone. It turns out, however, that is a huge misconception.

“Pilates is an excellent cross-training technique to help you up your game while training for any sport,” explains Jennifer McCamish, the owner of Dancers Shape, a Pilates and barre fitness studio in Austin. “I have a wide variety of professional athletes who benefit from Pilates—from professional golfers to NFL football players to Olympic gold medalist runners like Natasha Hastings.”

In order to understand how runners—and other athletes—can benefit from Pilates, McCamish (a former NYC Radio City Rockette) has rounded up four reasons why Pilates is the perfect cross-training.

Build Core Strength

“Pilates stabilizes and strengthens the core (the shoulder to pelvic girdle; not just the abs),” she explains. “A good Pilates instructor will help train the breath correlation to support movement, as well train the deep intrinsic stabilizing muscles to work in conjunction with the major muscle groups—creating efficient movement patterns and better biomechanics for sports performance. Runners can capture better speed by supporting the weight of their trunk with stronger posture.”

Fix Imbalance

“When training for a specific sport it can create imbalances in the body due to repetitious movement,” notes McCamish. “Pilates focuses on creating equal length and strength in opposing muscle groups so that the athlete is counteracting aches and pain or minor injuries from repetitious training.”

Correct Posture

“Pilates helps to reestablish proper strong posture and clear biomechanics,” she shares. “This is so that the body can begin to rehabilitate old injuries and it will help prevent future ones.”

Alleviate Knee Pain

“Pilates can help treat a common syndrome called “runner’s knee,” a sharp pain felt in the side of the knee during impact due to instability in the hip joint,” adds McCamish. “By strengthening the muscles that surround the hips with standard Pilates exercises like side leg lift, clam shell and bridge, you begin to establish better tracking for your running gait, alleviating the pain.”

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Exercise videos have been popular for decades now (Thanks, Jane Fonda!). What’s new, however, is that more and more titles are now available online – and at no cost.

PIlates videos, in particular, are a great way to supplement your workout when you can’t make it to the studio. The link below offers a useful overview of the top 10 FREE Pilates videos, as reviewed by the folks at Expertrain. This list includes a “Pilates Full 30 Minute Class,” “POP Pilates for Beginners – Total Body Workout,” and a “Pilates Butt Burner Full 30-Minute Workout.” Other titles reviewed include 10 minute sculpting exercises, cardio routines, core floor workouts, and a beach-body pilates video.

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As the familiar ad slogan puts it: “There’s an app for that!” This seems especially true in the world of health and fitness, where more people than ever are turning to their iPhones and laptops for information and support. There are now apps to help to help us exercise, count calories, track our progress and even offer supportive “motivators” to keep us going. There are so many, in fact, that navigating this expanding universe of apps can be a bit daunting.

Fortunately, as 2014 comes to a close, a number of digital and fitness experts are offering lists of the best apps out there. Even more fortunate, we have “reviewed the reviewers” for you, and offer some highlights here.

The free app “Fooducate” comes up on a number of this year’s “best” lists. In its review of “Best iPhone Fitness Apps,” Digital Trends recommends this app as “the perfect shopping buddy when you are trying to make healthy choices, but need a little help along the way…. Even better, the app gives you an actual grade (A, B+, D, etc.) for each food item, shown with alerts as to what the pros and cons are of that particular food.” Fooducate combines notational information with user reviews to all sorts of food in various user-friendly categories, and food items can be scanned using the bar code on any package. Among the things you could learn: Pop Tarts claim to have no trans fat, but that’s apparently a lie (though they still taste great, of course!).

As a companion to Fooducate, Digital Trends also recommends “Restaurant Nutrition.” Also free, this app is “simple, but it has a comprehensive list of fast-food and chain restaurants, including the nutritional information for almost any menu item that you can think of. This can help you make better choices when you’re eating out, but is also helpful when used in conjunction with another calorie counting app.”

In the fitness category, Digital Trends includes the free apps “Fitness Pro” and “Nexercise” on its list. According to their review: “Whether you’re an exercise junkie or a newbie at your local gym, Fitness Pro will teach you new exercises and how to properly utilize gym equipment…. The app also offers helpful photos of real people doing the exercises and users can combine different exercises into saved and personalized workout routines. It doesn’t help with at-home workouts, but it’s a perfect companion for making the most of your gym time.”

Unlike the instructional Fitness Pro app, Nexercise is one of many new “motivational” offerings. “If virtual badges and trophies aren’t enough of an incentive to get you off the couch, then perhaps a chance to win actual, tangible prizes will do the trick,” Digital Trends explains. “Nexercise is an exercise gamification app that awards you with points for just about any type of physical activity and allows you to use those points to claim prizes like gift cards and discounts from various retailers. No matter if you’re running a marathon or running the vacuum cleaner, Nexercize will track your fitness progress and reward you for your efforts.”

Another “best of the best” review was recently published by Men’s Fitness magazine. The free app “Nutrition Tips” tops their list. “Did you know that cut melon must be thrown out after two hours? Or that the leanest beef cuts include round steaks and roasts? Or that oysters contain protein, calcium, phosphorus and iron?,” the magazine asks. “This colorful app has fun factoids like these and more than 500 others to help you have a safe and healthy diet.” Men’s Fitness also praises “GoodFoodNearYou,” a free app that “recommends healthy food options based on your location, which is tracked by GPS.”

Finally, the venerable PC Magazine has put together it’s own online slide show of “The 25 Best Fitness Apps.” Among the highlights is the free app “Argus.” According to the magazine: “If you’re not ready to spend upward of a hundred bucks on a Fitbit One, Jawbone UP24, or other activity tracker, you might try the Argus (by Azumio) as a gateway app. As long as you carry your phone all day long, Argus will watch your movements. You can also log workouts, keep an eye on how much water you drink, and take photos of your food to inspire yourself to stick to a healthy lifestyle.” However, PC Magazine also warns: “Be aware that Argus can drain your battery quickly.”

Another free app recommended by PC Magazine is “Digifit iCardio.” “If you want real hard stats about your workouts, accelerometers and GPS aren’t enough,” says PCM. “You need a heart rate monitor…and an app that can access the information it collects. One option is the Digifit iCardio app for iPhone and Android (it’s called simply iCardio in Google Play).”

You can read more about these and other apps at any of the links below. Just remember: as you make your New Year’s fitness resolutions for 2015, “appy days” are indeed ahead!

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“The action of hip disassociation/differentiation happens when you reach your ischial tuberosities or sits bones as you descend to sit in a chair. The pelvis stabilizes and the femur heads scoop out your pelvis creating a deep crease at the front of the hip, as the photo at right demonstrates.”

Say what?

Unfortunately, some key Pilates concepts – such as “disassociation” – can be couched in overly-scientific jargon. The quotation above, from the pilates-pro.com web site, is but one example.

Fortunately, however, there are plenty of “plain English” explanations out there. One particularly inventive (and instructive) approach to understanding hip disassociation is offered by Francis Cahill, of the Pilates Fitness Institute.

In her article, “A Lesson from the Lego Man,” Cahill writes:

“We Pilates folk are always searching for ways that we can most effectively describe hard to imagine technical info as part of our education. One of these Pilates technical concepts is hip disassociation. Whilst this terminology sounds very ‘science nerd’, don’t run screaming for the hills just yet, all it really means is that we are trying to teach our bodies how to move our legs in isolation to our pelvis. Why would we want to do this, you ask? It is a crucial part of having a strong and stable core…. If you are someone whose hip flexors are often screaming at you during your exercise, this is a sure sign that your muscle balance around your hips is out of whack and this article will help you enormously.”

Importantly, she goes on to say: “To imagine this concept more easily, we will draw inspiration from our trusty little Lego Man (Our model is a James Bond Lego Man courtesy of Hilary who has these cuff links!!). Check out the picture (above) and notice how he has a hinge at the hip joint where he is able to move his legs without affecting the rest of his torso. Now that is impressive hip disassociation!”

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After suffering a voice injury that made it painful to talk, aerobics instructor Aliesa George “was afraid of losing her livelihood as well as the ability to share her passion with others.” Remarkably, she turned to Pilates and discovered “a whole new way to breathe as well as exercise.” Her injury healed.

“Breathing was one of the things I realized I didn’t know how to do right,” George said. “I was a competitive dancer and gymnast. I breathed shallowly through the top of my chest and not into the whole lung. … I always hated running and cardio because I could never take a deep enough breath for it to be fun.”

George’s experience is not uncommon and, in fact, such benefits are well-documented in medical research. According to WebMD, “deep breathing is one of the best ways to lower stress in the body. This is because when you breathe deeply, it sends a message to your brain to calm down and relax. The brain then sends this message to your body.

“Those things that happen when you are stressed, such as increased heart rate, fast breathing, and high blood pressure, all decrease as you breathe deeply to relax,” the website goes on to say. “The way you breathe affects your whole body. Breathing exercises are a good way to relax, reduce tension, and relieve stress.”

In her book Jumpstart Your Metabolism, Pam Grout notes that proper breathing can even be a key to losing weight. “You literally work at one-fifth of your potential when you don’t get enough oxygen,” she explains. “Your body slows down, gains weight, and becomes even more stubborn about changing.”

Deep breathing exercises have also been useful in treating illnesses such as ADD. In his book Healing ADD, Dr. Daniel Amen describes a simple technique that can benefit not only ADD patients, but everyone:

“One simple, commonly recommended way to start breathing deeply is to lie down and place a small book on your stomach. When you breathe in, make the book go up. When you breathe out, make the book go down. Or while sitting, place your hand on your stomach and do the same thing until you get the hang of it.”

Drawing on her Pilates experience, Aliesa George recommends this simple technique to increase awareness of how you breathe:

“Place a long scarf across your back with the ends in front, the bottom edge of the scarf sitting at the bottom of your rib cage in back. Cross the ends in front and take hold of them in your hands, drop your shoulders, and breathe. The scarf helps you to feel where your breath is in your lungs so that you can focus on breathing fully in both lungs. Most people breathe more deeply in one lung than the other…. You can work on breathing in one lung and then the other, and then on fully breathing in a balanced way in both lungs.”

“Breathing is going to make a difference for a healthy life,” George concludes. That’s advice worth taking – with every breath.

To read more on the benefits of breathing and Pilates, check out these recent articles:

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Whether you are a serious marathoner or simply a “run-for-fun” type, Pilates provides the optimal runner’s workout. Health and fitness experts agree that Pilates exercises are ideal, both as a preparation for all forms of running, and also as a way to repair any damage that running might cause.

Marathon runner Aline Raywood “recalls the time when she was having a groin pull almost every 2 months, which started to interfere with her training. She was also plateauing in her training as she was feeling that she was lacking oxygen for sustained high level of endurance.” The answer for Raywood: Pilates.

For more about the benefits of Pilates for runners, check out these articles. Then, mark your calendar with one or more of the upcoming, local running events listed below.

Highlights: The Santa Skivvies Run is “a festive romp through San Francisco benefiting San Francisco AIDS Foundation. The route begins at UN Plaza and follows Market Street to the Castro. In just four short years, Santa Skivvies Run has become one of the city’s most beloved holiday events.” Website: http://dev.santaskivviesrun.org/

Holiday Hustle (Date/Place: 12/07/2014/Morgan Hill).

Highlights: Runners that register before November 24th. will receive a tech tee. All runners “will be able to enjoy a post race beer as well as the food you come to expect from a trail race. There will be finishers medals given for all distances.” Website: https://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=28585